Finding Reality
by The Can-Can group
Summary: Naruto has been living a life were there is no demon inside of him, no ninjas or deadly assasins. However, he's been having weird dreams recently, causing him to question everything he has ever known... Guess what... DISCONTINUED!


Disclaimie:

I don't… LOOK! A UFO::runs away:

Finding Reality

Chapter One: One Day in the Life of Uzamaki Naruto

Plot by: The Can-Can group

A/N: The chapter title is a reference to "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich." I had to write a paper on it last year for English, wasn't fun at all, I also had to give a lecture about it to the rest of the class, and I jumped around, a lot.

OOOOOOO

Something was missing. Something very important. And if he doesn't get it back, there will be very dire consequences.

Or so Naruto thought as he got up one morning. To put it simply, he had a broken dream. There were parts that he knew he should remember, but no matter how much he tried, nothing would come to him, its like something was blocking him from trying to bring it all back. The only thing he could recall was blood. Lot's of blood. There was blood on his hands (was he just a spectator, or was he really "him?"), some on his body, and some all over the scenery of the dream.

"Psst."

His mind began to research the dream, trying to find a clue as to the "plot" of this dream. Maybe there was some small thing that could unlock another "area," like in a video game or something. There has got to be something… oh, wait… no, that wasn't it. He sighed, time to try another part that he had searched over a million times all ready.

"Hey."

Nope, still nothing. This is going to bug him for the rest of the day. He'll have to keep on trying until the unanswerable question is finally answered, but knowing Naruto's lack of attention, it could take forever till he finally found what he was looking for.

"Naruto…"

The said boy scowled as he lifted his head from his arms. He had a mental track going and someone just interrupted him in his path to discovering the lost parts of his dream. "What do you want?" He asked, turning his head to see who had interrupted him and paled instantly when he saw his teacher in view.

"Whatcha doing?" His teacher asked, a small, yet sarcastic, smile on his face.

Naruto paused in his answer, what was he doing? Oh, yeah, thinking about his dream, even analyzing it. "Day dreaming," Naruto answered before he thought of the consequences of such a reply.

The smile fell a little off of his teacher's face. He hadn't expected that answer. He figured that the "class clown" would stammer for a moment, and then come up with a lame excuse to cover up the real reason and hopefully, save his hide. He never expected the boy to actually tell the reason why he wasn't paying attention in class. He quickly composed himself within a half-a-second (a record, thought Naruto as he watched his teacher's face). "Well, you can just dream yourself out into the hallway, and then you can day dream all you want in detention."

Naruto stood up, slight happy at the fact that now he wouldn't have to half-listen to his teacher's lesson and half-try to figure out the rest of the dream. He would even get detention to try to figure it all out. For the first time, he was relieved to be out in the hall.

"Nice going," Sakura said to him as he passed her by on the way to the door, her bright green eyes giving him contempt and anger at him screwing up, again. "This is the last day we have to work on the project and we can't do that if you aren't here."

Oh, yeah, he totally forgot about the project. Not only was it a project, it was THE Project, the one that would boost the grades of the students, if they worked together on the project, or help them fail the course if the project turns out really bad. Sakura, being the Sakura that she is, won't allow herself to get a low grade because of him. "Why not just ask Sasuke-jerk if he could help you with the project, so far he's the only one that hasn't helped."

Sakura turned red (Naruto figured that it was either from anger, or from the mentioning of her longtime crush being mentioned). "And make him do work? I can't do that!" She paused to take a sigh. "I'll just ask Iruka-sensei if he could allow us to turn it in first thing in the morning. Just make sure you practice the parts you are supposed to say."

Naruto grumbled darkly as he went out into the hallway. As he opened the door, he could remember seeing Sasuke, out of the corner of his eyes, giving him a small smirk, more then likely because of the exchange between Sakura and Naruto. It's like the boy never had to work a day in his life, if Sakura and the rest of the female population had anything to do with it. And why couldn't Sakura ever blush at his name? What was he, chopped liver? The only thing the guy had going for him, is his brooding ways and his "whatever" attitude that girls seemed to like so much. Its not like that he couldn't act like that (sure he choose not to, but he could if he wanted to), but then, he wouldn't have any fun at all because he would spend all his time being an idiot with a pessimistic look on his face.

Now that he had gotten that out of his system, there was a reason why he was so happy to be out in the hallway, what was it? Oh, yeah, the broken dream of his. It began to reply in his mind, again. Images flashed in and out or his brain. Still nothing. Maybe, it just wasn't meant to be, like him dating Sakura. Sighing, he pushed it all back, filing it all away for later use.

The hallway was empty, he noted. There wasn't anything out there to keep him preoccupied from his boredom, which would, no doubt, come any second now.

Sighing, Naruto sat down on the floor and leaned his back against the wall. Maybe he could get some sleep. He had stayed up late the night before, watching TV and playing around on the Internet, not too mention the dream wouldn't leave him alone and whenever there was a particular scary part, he would wake up in a cold sweat. That thought made him scowl for a moment. Of all of his other dreams, none of them continued after he woke up from them and went back to sleep. But this one… This one continued, even after he got up, went to the kitchen to get some water, and went back to bed.

Something was definitely up, and just as soon as he got up from his nap, he'll try to figure out what it is.

………………………………………..

The bell rang through out the school half-an-hour later. Students filed out of the classrooms, heading to their next subjects in a herd-like manner, only stopping to talk with friends until a teacher told those who blocked the hallways to "shut up" and "get to class" in a tyrannical manner. Just like a herd of cows and the herders that herd them.

All except for one.

Naruto still slept, leaning against the wall, receiving glares and troubled looks from those who passed him by. Still, he slept, even when someone accidentally tripped over him and lost hold of the papers in that person's arms. Even after the person cursed at him for a good two minutes before leaving, his eyes were closed.

Then his teacher entered the hallway, having to go to the teacher's lounge in order to make more copies of a work sheet for the students. He, too, almost tripped over Naruto after making a sharp turn from the classroom door and nearly stepped on the boy. He stared for a moment, unsure of what to do. He decided that it would be better to wake the boy, instead of letting him stay there and suffer the consequences of sleeping out in the hallway during school hours.

"Naruto, get up!" His teacher said, nudging Naruto's leg with his foot. "You're going to be late for class." The hallways are starting to empty out, students heading to class, some even running in a race against the bell.

Slowly, the boy's eyes opened up, revealing them to the world. He stretched his arms up and the sickening sound of a back cracking came soon after. "Man," the boy muttered as his arms fell back into place. "That was the best nap I have ever had."

"Whatever," Iruka said, helping the boy get up. "Just get to class."

Naruto's eyes wondered to the digital clock hanging on the wall across from him. Class is about to start and he has to go all the way to the other end of the school. "Can I have a pass?" He asked wearily, trying to get guilt points from his teacher.

"No."

"Crap." Naruto ran inside the classroom to gather his stuff and left, racing down the hallways, not listening to any of the teachers that tell him to slow down as he passed them by.

He arrived at the room just as the bell rang and he sighed in relief. Of course, he could be late to this class; the teacher is notorious for always being late on purpose, like he's trying to prove something to the students.

Naruto took his seat in the back of the class (his teacher said that he didn't want to see Naruto's face ever again after this one incident that involved lots of glue and a rubber chicken), near where the other weirdoes sit. It stung a little, when he first sat there, and being considered a weirdo by his teacher's standards, when, in reality, the teacher is the one who reads smutty novels during class, sometimes even when he's teaching. What's the world coming to? Naruto wanted to yell out.

What's really bad is sitting next to the guy covered in dog hair and the kid who sneaks snacks in the middle of class.

This was also the same class where he couldn't see Sakura's face, only the back of her pink hair (he had made the mistake of asking her if it was dyed or natural and he nearly got killed for that one).

"'Sup?" He said as he took his seat next to the two boys. Both of them nodded in return and the daily ritual of greeting each other was complete. "Ready for today?" He asked as the excitement of the day's prank began to bubble inside of his stomach. Choji and Kiba (aka Fatso and Dog Boy) smirked and nodded. There was never a boring class period when Naruto was around.

Grinning, Naruto went up to the black board and grabbed one of the erasers. Sure it was one of the older tricks in the book, but that never stopped him, sometimes, its just best to go back to the originals. Eyes were upon him as he went over to the door, some curious of what he was going to do, others furious at another lame trick. He quickly grabbed a lone chair, pulled it over to the door, and stood on the seat. His hand that was clutched around the eraser, reached higher and higher…

… And then he paused.

Something about this was familiar, like he had done this before, but when? Was it during the fifth grade? That school year flashed in his mind in a span of a second. Nope, not the fifth. What about another year?

"Hey," Kiba growled out as his eyebrows lowered in confusion and apprehension at the hesitation of Naruto. It was totally unlike him to act like this, especially when there's a prank to be played. "What's the hold up?"

Naruto shook his head causing his all ready messy blond hair to become even more so. "Nothing," he replied. With a new conviction, Naruto placed the eraser between the door and the door jamb, sliding the door so that it was holding the black rectangle in place.

Quickly, he ran back to his desk and waited for the show to begin.

"Sorry I'm late," the teacher announced as he began to enter the room. "I was-"

The eraser took that time to fall down and hit Kakashi on the head, releasing a cloud of chalk dust all over his all ready silver hair.

Silence fell upon the classroom.

For a full second, the teacher actually looked mad, and it was the first time that Naruto has ever seen that particular expression upon his teacher's face. However, it quickly was wiped away and replaced with a smile, the same smile that tended to cover up his true emotions. "I can all ready tell," he said slowly, as if choosing his words carefully. "That this is going to be a shitty period today."

And boy it was…

……………………………………………………………..

"Thanks a lot, Naruto." Was the main sarcastic comment coming from the peers of his class as they left right after the bell rung. Kakashi's class was hard, even more so since it's the Literature class. The teacher was one of those types that gives discussions that you are supposed to take notes on, gives nearly impossible tests, and gives tremendous amounts of homework, on a good day. Since it wasn't a good day, they had to go with seven pages of book work, unprecedented amount of notes to be copied before he went on to the next overhead slide, and a monster pop quiz.

Of course, Naruto was the only one to receive the boatload of homework. The others in the class only had to do a carload, which isn't fair, Naruto figured as he left the classroom.

Sure he played another trick on Kakashi, but does the giving of the huge amount of homework compensate for the trick?

Naruto didn't think so.

Not that whatever he thought was of any consequence…

The day got slightly better from there. Next was lunch. Lunch, for him, meant Ramen in a Rubbermaid bowl. In other words, cold Ramen. The plastic container is only good for keeping things inside of it and giving the food protection from the outside world, like liquids, bugs and other stuff. This does not mean that it helps prevent the escaping of heat, the container, made out of plastic, could only do so much.

"Great," Naruto mumbled as he broke apart the chopsticks and opened the lid of the container, causing a small amount of steam released itself and into the cold air. A few drops of the condensation from the lid fell off and into the bowl before he could put the plastic lid onto the table. "I should really get a thermos, one that allows you to control the heat settings."

Sighing, he used the chopsticks to gather up the noodles and place them into his mouth. Since the noodles were cold, there was only a very slight euphoric feeling being created and quickly passed.

Silently, he finished up the rest of the Ramen, leaving nothing in the bowl when he was done.

And then, he became bored.

Sure, he could work on his homework for Kakashi so that he could have time to work on the project so that Sakura wouldn't kill him the next day, or he could just see what the girl was up to and ask her (for the umpteenth time) if she would date him. Grinning, he got up and walked over to the table where he could see her light pink hair shinning in the artificial brightness of the cafeteria lights. He approached the table.

Then, he backed away in slight anger and irritation.

Sasuke was at the table too.

She was asking if he would go out with her.

Not only that, but Ino, one of the, in Naruto's mind, bitchy popular types, was at the table with her "feathers" looking riffled as if just rejected and seeing as how she was just as obsessive as Sakura (even more so) is, she probably just asked the "Boy Hit Wonder" if he would date her and was utterly rejected in a possible Sasuke fashion.

"No."

"But," Sakura pleaded as the boy continued on with his lunch, attempting to ignore those around him. "Why not? Its not like it could be any problem to you. If you want, I'll let you choose the place and I'll pay for it."

Sasuke stopped chewing his food for a moment as if trying to decide on something. He swallowed the food and turned to look at her. "The place I would choose would be expensive, not to mention, don't you have a project to do?"

The thing about Sakura is that she has an allowance that's the same as minimum wage and only gets it once a week. She doesn't even have a job. In other words, unless she begs and pleads to her parents, she's dirt poor.

"Fine then," She said as a tinge of blushing embarrassment started to show on her face. "I'll go work on the project, but if you don't work on your part, there will be consequences." Her eyes seemed to become sharper as Sasuke shrugged and continued on with his lunch, efficiently blocking out everyone around him.

Wasn't there a saying, Naruto wondered, that describes hell as being fury and a women scorned? Sakura literally brings hell to anyone who bugs her or crosses her path when she's in one of her PMS-ish moods.

"Hey, Sakura," Naruto said excitedly as she began to walk past by him. "If you want, you could-"

And the pink haired girl decked him with a powerful right hook.

Silence fell upon the cafeteria as he fell to the ground, blood coming out the side of his mouth.

Sakura walked out of the spacious room and was followed by the murmurings of her peers, which was, in turn, followed by people talking animatedly about the event that just took place.

Naruto just sat there, in a slight shock as he wiped the side of his mouth of the blood. "Wow," he muttered. "That punch just makes me want her more."

And all was good.

………………………………………………

The last bell rung for the day. Students left the classroom in a frenzy to leave the black hole, fun sucking, entity known as "school." Teachers went to the lounge where they smoked cigarettes, using the excuse that it "relieves the headaches from teaching the brats." However, there were a few of students who stayed for one thing or another. Some stayed for an after activity, such as a sport or a club, others stayed to help out a teacher with something or their parents hadn't arrived to pick them up.

Then there was Naruto. He had to stay because he has detention.

Or so he told this one kid.

"Listen, I can't play today, I have to stay for detention," Naruto all but yelled at the kid as he tried to reason with him.

"But, you promised me! You always told me to keep your promises, plus, it serves you right"

Naruto glared at the boy. "What's that supposed to mean?"

The little boy gained a haughty look on his face, he even "hmphed" to add emphasis. "I have my ways of knowing."

The almost thirteen boy raised an eyebrow. "You had one of your friends spy on me?"

"How'd you know?" The boy asked looking surprised and upset at the same time.

Naruto sighed. This boy had met Naruto by chance during the beginning of the school year. Naruto was running away from one of his teachers, the kid was attempting to ditch class and they both ran into each other in the schoolyard separating the Junior high school and the elementary school from each other. The kid, for some reason, then began to want to hang out with him, saying that Naruto is a worthy opponent and preceded to make him play Pirates. "Don't you still have to be in class?"

"Half day," the boy replied as he glared at Naruto.

"Why don't you go home so that I can get to detention?"

"Coward…"

"Not."

"Too."

"ARE NOT!"

"ARE TOO!"

In the back of his mind, Naruto knew that it was a stupid argument and that Iruka would kill him if he was late, but still, he wasn't one to back away from a challenge. "ARE NOT!"

"WHY AREN'T YOU IN MY CLASSROOM!" Iruka yelled from his door (Naruto was on his way there, but the boy had blocked his path). "YOU HAVE TEN SECONDS TO GET YOUR BUTT IN GEAR!"

"Bye, Konohamaru." Naruto didn't even wait to hear the boy's response and ran to his teacher's room, being careful to not look at his teacher's eyes, much like a dog who did something wrong.

"I was going to allow you to sit there and do whatever you want for detention," his teacher said as he entered the classroom with his arms crossed over his chest in a threatening manner. "However, since you failed to arrive on time, I'm going to make you clean the classroom."

Due to the fact that Iruka teaches only seventh graders, the classroom is a wreck. Gum under the desks, crumpled notebook papers all over the floor, scribbles on the desk and the occasional puke stains from highly stressed students on the floors. Iruka wasn't one to make his students clean up the mess left over by the periods, usually he makes the janitor do that particular job (since it was his duty, after all), however, when you get on Iruka's bad side, he makes you do the dirty work.

The teacher went to the back of his classroom where a storage closet was. All the science classes had one in their rooms so that the teachers could have a place to store things that would be needed for class. Iruka wasn't one of those. He used his closet as a broom closet since his class wasn't very hands on as much as the other classes were.

"Here," he said as he handed various cleaning utensils to Naruto. "I have a meeting to get to, I want this room spotless by the time I get back."

Naruto mocked salute his teacher. "Will do, captain!"

With a shaking of his head, Iruka left the room, heading for the meeting he was all ready five minutes late to.

After his teacher left, Naruto cast a calculating gaze around the classroom. It would take him at least an hour to do everything and he was hungry. Really hungry. With his stomach starting to grumble, Naruto got to work on cleaning the room.

While he was doing that, his mind was a million miles away from where he was. The dream played back into his mind, slightly more confusing since it wasn't as fresh on his mind as it was that morning. He could've sworn that he saw some people that he knew in his dream. Naruto thought he saw Sakura crying over someone and Sasuke looking a bit grim. Flashes of other people filtered into his mind. Dozens of others, some he knew and some he didn't.

Eventually, it all became too much and he dragged himself back to reality.

The broom, that wasn't in his hand a moment before, paused in its sweeping motion as he looked around the room. Most of it was finished while he was on auto pilot, with the exception of a few pieces of paper that he missed, Naruto was done, or at least whatever "done" meant to his standards. "If he doesn't like it," he muttered to himself. "He can just piss off."

"Piss off on what, though?"

Naruto clenched his eyes closed as he gulped. Today just wasn't his day. Slowly, he turned around and faced Iruka with a goofy grin planted on his face. "Didn't see you there, sir. I was just talking about… um… Sasuke-jerk. This is his desk," Naruto pointed to the said desk. "And I didn't get all the gum underneath it."

Iruka raised an eyebrow, but (much to Naruto's chagrin) didn't press the issue. Instead, he sighed and said, "Listen, its my fault for keeping you here so long, why don't I take you out for Ramen? How does that sound?"

_Ramen… Ramen…_ The word repeated itself in the blond haired boy's mind, echoing seemingly forever. The goofy grin grew bigger in size as he jumped up and made a "whoopee" sound.

As they gathered their things and left the room, heading to the outside world, Naruto had another sense of déjà vu, like what happened with Kakashi earlier that day. However, he couldn't place where it was coming from, just like earlier. However, the thought of Ramen erased that from his mind as he began to make his selection of what he wanted in his mind.

……………………………………..

It was around six when he finally arrived at the apartment. The lights were off, submerging him into total darkness as soon as he set foot into the front room. Feeling slightly dejected, Naruto flicked the light switch on. "Are you guys home?" He called out as he allowed his back bag to fall to the ground. He really didn't expect an answer back from the silence of the rooms. Must be out drinking, or something, Naruto thought.

It was like this every day. Even if he didn't call to tell his negligent parents that he was going to be late, they, instead of worrying, would go about their own business, even pretending that they didn't have a child. It's been this way since he was a kid. They would go out to parties and come home drunk (sometimes even engage in vigorous "love-making"- if you would call it that with the angry way they go about it- while he was still in the room) and he would just exist, like some trinket that was bought from a garage sale.

To him, it's just another night in the Uzamaki household.

Since he all ready had dinner, Naruto went to the living room where he watched TV for an hour. As the white credits rolled up the black screen, he got up and grabbed his back bag, heading to his room. The homework would take awhile to do, especially since he had tons from Kakashi, plus he would have to memorize the things that he had to say for the project, least Sakura castrates him for screwing everything up.

Looks like he's going to have to pull another all nighter.

Hours later, in the dead of the night, he gave a huge sigh of relief as he closed the book with a resounding "pound" sound. The clock, next to his messy bed, read "4:15" into the dim light of the ceiling fan. Only three hours of sleep, he would be able to get. That means he'll just have to sleep during class. Shifting some of the textbooks from their places on the bed and onto the floor, Naruto made himself some space to sleep on. Slowly, the eyes grew heavy and eventually, he fell asleep.

…

_Blood was everywhere. Cruel and evil laughs rang through his ears. Someone was shouting desperately (was that Sakura?) and someone else was fighting the cruel laughter. _

_It all seemed hopeless._

…

Naruto's eyes flashed open. It was another broken dream with twice as much blood and anger in it. "What the hell is going on with me?" He asked to no one in particular as a hand fluttered up to his shaggy blond hair to wipe away some of the sweat.

The shrilling of the alarm clock brought him to attention, bringing his wondering mind back to his room. Time for another hell-filled day in school, not that he was complaining or anything, and any torture Sakura might bring to him if he screws up.

Breakfast, as usual, was a bowl of cereal with expired milk. "Need to go get some groceries," He muttered to himself as he put the empty bowl away. Naruto is always the one to get the groceries, using the money he takes from his parents' wallets, since they were never the ones to do it. He always wondered if they knew that he did the shopping, or if they were just complete idiots and thought that the food magically appeared whenever there seemed to be a shortage.

A quick look at the clock told him that he needed to get going so that he wouldn't be late for school. Quickly, he went to his bedroom, threw on some clothes, went to the bathroom to do his usual morning activities, raced to his room, again, and grabbed his things.

"I'll see you later," Naruto called out, not caring if they responded or not.

The door slammed shut after him.

School was only a few blocks away from the apartment building, so he walked every morning to the structure. Unfortunately, that also means walking in the rain. Such as it was doing at that moment.

Naruto ran along the sidewalks, staying away from the curb since, from experience, cars tend to make splashed with their wheels and end up getting you covered in water.

There were only a few other people walking along the sidewalk, the rest had either driven (as evidence to all the traffic that were rolling by) or hitched a ride with someone else. Those were the smart ones, unlike Naruto, and boy did he wish that he could ride in one of the cars with their heating and whatnots.

"Naruto!" A car rolled up next to him and the window was rolled down with Sakura's head poking out.

"What?" He was curious, Naruto admitted. It wasn't every day that Sakura, willingly, talked to him, or even looked at him in that fact of manner.

"As much as I don't want to suggest this," Behind her, Naruto could see her mother giving her a short tap to the skull. Sakura whipped her head around and glared, for a moment, at her mom. Putting a tentative hand to the small bump, Sakura turned her head back to him. "Do you want a ride?"

Naruto's heart seemed to skip a beat for a second. "Are you serious?" He almost asked if he was dreaming, but he knew that he would incur Sakura's wrath if he did so.

Sakura seemed to be having an inner battle with herself, probably second guessing the (forced) decision. Slowly, she nodded. "Can't have you getting sick and messing things up for me."

As Naruto got into the backseat of the car, he could feel his innards leaping for joy.

OOOOOO

Authoress's Notie:

Ah, yes, my first endeavor into Naruto fanfiction. Yay…

This is just a side project that I'm working on whenever I'm on the basement computer (I have one in my room, so I tend to work there). I hope everyone are in character, I think that I did a good job, if I do say so myself. Surprisingly, this is very easy to write, sort of. The hardest parts are the dream sequences since I'm not very good at using; I guess you could say, "pretty words."

Pairings are what-ever-the-hell I feel like. I'm not really big in the romance department (I have yet to be in a relationship) so I don't have the experience to write such things like that. So, if you don't like this story just because your favorite pairing isn't here, then don't read it, or at least read it because of the plot, or something.

I'm not going to talk about anything else, since everything will be revealed (eventually) and I don't want to give anything away.

So… um… yeah…

Questions? Comments? Complaints? Just wanna have me become a killer-for-hire? Just click on the purple button and off you go…

The Can-Can group (there's only one person in this group, just in case anyone is wondering…)


End file.
